Scratching the Surface - A Peter Strickland Thread

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thread for hungarian-based English film director Peter Strickland.

quote is an innocuous phrase from a Berberian Sound Studio interview here.

I think it does a decent job of suggesting the way he delves under both genre and the ideas sex, revenge and horror, as well as implying the essential factor of sound in his film - sound as a space of exploration and scenery as much as the visual, to the point of representing another narrative of sorts.

I quite liked Katalin Varga without loving it, Berberian Sound Studio is the great film of recent years for me, one of my favourites of all time I think, and I thought The Duke of Burgundy was great as well, without being certain how much weight it carries... still thinking.

sound again central. the list of recordings listed at the end as if not more important than the visual scenery. pleasing joke in the credits - the informal English names of the moths and butterflies played by their Latin classification.

v nearly did - or a P Strickland thread - and still might, but the film itself feels a little lightweight. not all in a bad way - wish there were more films that were intriguing bagatelles - but I'm still thinking.

actually that's not true, I'm sitting in the cinema bar drinking, but that's what passes for thinking round my way recently.

the film is superbly punctuated by lectures on lepidoptera, with slow scans of the all women audience - they're all fantastically dressed and individually beautiful - in the way that is sometimes demeaningly termed "striking". the only exception being a slightly toppling badly wigged mannequin.

this film is as much about dress and dressing up as it is about anything else. the visual and aural aspects of the fabric are v sensually indulged in.

Thanks for reminding me that I missed my chance to see "Goodbye to Language" in Chicago, apparently. How does Herzog get a 3D documentary about a cave into theatres, and Wenders gets a 3D doc about a dance into theaters, but Godard's lauded latest barely sneaks in for a couple of weeks? And alas because this is meant for 3D, I have a sad feeling that means I will never get to see it.

Really enjoyed DOB, moreso than BSS in fact. Easy to see the whole role-playing aspect as a commentary on performance, with characters literally reading their lines from cue cards, or as an effective metaphor for the transactional, power-inscribed relationship that exists between author and audience. Also very smart on the way that other people's desires, even people we love, can bore us, or disgust us.

That sense of decadent European boredom reminded me strongly of Kumel's Daughters of Darkness at times, and it's easy to see the film as a very oblique vampire story, one where sleeping in a coffin becomes a fetishistic act.

People certainly laughed at that line, the whole scene around the discussion of the bed with the disappointment in Cynthia's face as it can't be made in time for her bday was all round hilarious.

This was so beautifully designed and its sounds so well recorded -- it was the first time I felt surround sound as threatening and spooky by itself. Maybe it was where I was sat? V much like Goodbye to Language in that respect -- really nice to see two film where the material of film is being used a new, the space of cinema as a site for experiment on us poor viewers -- although its points around desire were easier to make something of than Godard's scattershot commentary.

That whole conversation would have seamlessly slotted into an episode of Blue Jam or maybe The Phantom of Liberty and it was funny, but also there was genuine pathos from Evelyn's character (the momentary look of horror) and it was also quite a humanising moment for both characters.

i just wish i'd watched this on a decent system. as it happens we watched it on my computer screen with stereo speakers. Love the sequence of the moths piling up and getting closer and closer to the camera until it's just a static-y blur of wings and abdomens.

There was a pretty good Strickland radio play on 4 this aft "The Len Continuum". Toby Jones voicing a hapless failed actor who peaked with a bit part in Never The Twain and it featured some Stricklandesque sonic diversions.